Yesterday I attempted to use plaster to
strengthen the wax moulds, in an attempt to stop the larger ones from bending
and splitting open. Unfortunately I was only able to use a small amount of very
old plaster, reducing the strength of the material as well how much of the
mould was covered. So when I poured in the wax the card bent slightly,
completely taking away the clean and sharp aesthetic that I am striving to
achieve. On top of this when I came to getting the wax out of the mould, the
card had stuck to the wax, making it much harder to separate the two. I think this
is because of two reasons, one is that I had left the wax to dry for too long,
so they had bonded together. Another reason is that the plaster had had some
effect on the card, making it stickier. Although the wax attaching itself to
the card isn't a big deal, it is annoying, as it increases the amount of time that's
spent removing the wax from the mould. I need to keep experimenting to see if
this occurs again, or if it was just a fluke.
Today I started to experiment further
with plaster, as well as thick cardboard, rather than the thin card. I went to
Butley to work in my studio space, as the sculptures that I'm starting to make
are too big for my house, and the wax can spill very easily, which it did
yesterday resulting in my hands getting burned. I began by making a few
cardboard moulds, adding a layer of good plaster around one, to see what
difference that would make with the new card. When it came to pouring the wax I
decided to experiment by pouring it when it was incredibly hot. The plastered
mould held up surprisingly well, with only a few holes appearing. The normal
mould however burst quite quickly, spilling a lot of wax. This was a good
learning experience though, even if I had lost a fair amount of wax in the
process. I then plastered the outside of the burst mould, eventually filling it
to the top with boiling wax. When I left Butley it hadn't burst, but I had to
leave fairly soon after pouring, so hopefully the wax is currently drying ready for
me to open it up tomorrow.
As I have mentioned before, pouring
when the wax is hot is quite important, as the bigger dip in the work only
occurs when the wax has been poured when it's incredibly warm. I feel that
today I have discovered a way to pour the wax when it's hot, solving me a lot
of problems.
The positives of using the cardboard is
that it doesn't bend as easily, so when I'm creating large sculptures they'll
come out straight rather than bendy. A negative may be that the cardboard binds
itself to the wax, as the board is made up of many layers. I'll find this out
tomorrow, but if that's the case I will have to find a different kind of
cardboard to use, one that is thick but doesn't have many layers.
I also experimented with placing the
work on the wall today. It was much easier than expected, simply drilling a
hole into the backs of the sculptures and sliding it into a screw which was on
the wall. The work with the thicker base was able to simply be placed onto a
straight screw, but the smaller based piece had to have a screw that had been
put into the wall at an angle. This is probably due to the weight being unbalanced.
I'm really happy that it's that easy, hopefully when I start to make huge ones
they will still hold up with only a few screws.
Although I'm working for Laurence
tomorrow, I hope to take sculptures out of the moulds that I made today,
checking to see whether the techniques worked well or not. As well as this I
would like to make another sculpture, one that combines all that I have learned
in the past week. I also need to start thinking about what relevance the
different colours have on the concept in general.
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